CHAP. III
I passed the morning in examining every part of the Castle, which was a good deal out of repair, except in the wing where they had taken up their residence. About noon I visited my prisoners, and carried to them the portion I had allotted for them.—They appeared to be differently affected, the Count was very weak, his pride, his spirits seemed subdued by the consideration of the distress his child and Eugenia had suffered. He condescended to supplicate for them; the child screamed on my approach, and flew to her mother, who with a look, and in a tone of mingled grief and haughtiness, thus addressed me:
"Whatever evils you have resolved to overwhelm me with, I can bear. You think I have deserved to suffer; but who, Sir, made you a judge in your own cause? I never deceived you, I told you I had no heart to give; you persisted, ungenerously laid a tax on the gratitude my dear father felt, and insisted that the hand of his daughter should be your reward for services, which common humanity would have dictated to the poorest peasant, had his power been equal to your's. Your claims, added to an unhappy, and I will say unjust, prejudice my father had conceived against the man I loved, proved destruction to my peace and happiness; commands which I had never disputed, and the impending horrors of a parent's curse drew from me an equivocal promise that I would give you my hand. Heaven has punished me for a duplicity I could not, according to my own feelings, avoid or evade. At the altar, neither my heart nor lips ratified the gift of my hand, for my vows were given to another. The consequence you know.
"You now, Sir, usurp an unjust power over us; but do not deceive yourself, neither peace nor pleasure can follow such unjustifiable, such cruel deeds; murder has many tongues, and your own conscience will avenge our wrongs."
Here she ceased; I had listened to her with pain and impatience; the music of her voice thrilled to my very soul, but her words drove every soft idea from my heart as instantly as they were conceived.—"There is bread and water (exclaimed I, my passions roused to a degree of frenzy) that, and a bed of straw is what you may expect from me." I returned to the offices, I brought two small tables and benches; I fixed a faint and glimmering lamp against the wall, which served only to throw a gloomy light, and additional horror, on the dismal dungeons. A small opening was between them, and the length of their chains permitted their approach near to each other; I fetched straw and a blanket for each; they observed all these preparations in sullen silence, I was as little disposed to talk. When I had completed the business, and was about to leave them, "You now see that I am in earnest (said I;) once a day I shall visit you, and gratify my feelings by a view of your miseries."
"O, my child! my dear child!" exclaimed Eugenia, passionately.—I made no reply, but a look of scornful exultation, and returned to the apartments I had fixed on for my residence.
I was now alone, condemned to solitude without a friend, or even an attendant: I regretted the loss of Peter; he had served me some years with fidelity, why then did I distrust him? Why suffer my cowardly apprehensions to deprive me of a companion so necessary? These were my reflections as I looked round on the gloomy woods which appeared from every window, and heard the hollow winds whistling through the trees.—Surely, thought I again, this Castle was built for deeds of darkness; murder has been familiar within these walls, and the Count's ancestors, perhaps, were not less criminal than myself.
A violent storm of hail and thunder confined me to the apartment for the remainder of the day. I employed myself in arranging matters for my own accommodation, when towards the evening, as I was musing over the recent events, it darted into my mind that the poor boy whom I had confined in the lodge, if not dead, might be useful to me; the situation of this boy had never occurred to me till that moment: I hastened to the place, and found him in a most pitiable state, almost without life. I released and assisted him into the house; I told him, the Count and his family had been obliged to fly to avoid being imprisoned by the Emperor, whose orders had been issued for that purpose; that being related to the Count's Lady, I remained in the Castle, at their request, to keep possession for them, and would be kind to him if he behaved well.
Young, extremely ignorant, and overjoyed to escape from the apprehensions of death, he implicitly believed every thing I asserted, and when, by a little bread and wine being cautiously administered, I had brought him to a small return of strength and courage, he bestowed a thousand blessings on me for preserving his life; so strangely had the sudden fright and terror overcome his senses when he was seized upon, that he described five or six great tall men armed breaking into the Castle, and swearing to murder every one in it. He rejoiced to hear that his master and Lady escaped from them, and never once expressed any surprise at my being there, or asked by what means I came to know of his confinement. From that day he served me faithfully; I was obliged to trust him once into the village for necessaries, but after that time I engaged a farmer to come himself once or twice a week, and as I paid him handsomely, he never expressed any curiosity, or a wish to penetrate into my motives for this recluse way of life, and having slightly hinted the same tale I had fabricated to the boy, he as readily believed it.
Three months passed away without the least alteration in the plan I had laid down and regularly pursued, only that I visited my prisoners at night, after the boy was retired to rest, and had nailed up the doors of those rooms where the wretches lay whom I had sacrificed to my own safety. I am apt to believe the Count and Eugenia sometimes flattered themselves that time would subdue my resentment, or that I should grow tired of living in that solitary mansion; but if such ideas occurred to them, they were mistaken; solitude nursed the ferocity of my disposition, and the patience and resignation they evinced in their horrid situation only increased my desire of continuing their punishment till despair and sorrow should more completely gratify my revenge. 'Tis true, I sometimes looked back with regret on the few weeks I had spent with the Count and his daughter at my own mansion, far the happiest days of my life, and for which I have dearly paid by subsequent miseries!
I some times felt a degree of envy rise in my bosom when I read of the pleasures enjoyed by a social converse with our fellow creatures; and there were moments when I was tormented with the idea, that even my prisoners experienced some satisfaction in being able to communicate their feelings to each other. It is certain that had there been a possibility of placing them separately I should have done it, but I was incapable of making a new arrangement myself, and dared not confide in the boy. A circumstance, however, soon took place, which rendered them as completely wretched as my vindictive heart could desire.
On one of my nocturnal visits, I found the Count overwhelmed with an unusual gloom, and the mother supporting her child on her bed of straw, almost drowned in tears.—When I approached her, "See, barbarian! (cried she) the work of thy cruel hands;—behold this dear innocent victim devoured by a fever occasioned by the damps of the dungeon, and want of proper food. O, if thy heart is not more callous than the fiercest beasts of prey, compassionate my child, save, oh! save its life, or be merciful and destroy us all at once!"
My heart fluttered at this address, and a something like pity rose for a moment to my soul; but instantly recollecting that she had pledged her vows to me at the altar with an intention to deceive, that the child was the offspring of a detested rival, and that now was my turn to triumph; those ideas in a moment chased the weakness from my heart, and gave place to very different sensations. Before I could reply, the Count addressed me, in a tremulous voice:
"I never thought to supplicate pity, or sue for any favours, but nature, all-powerful, subdues both pride and hatred. My child! Baron, save my child, spare its wretched mother this bitter climax of sorrow." He was interrupted, the child called for drink, the small portion I had brought was quickly gone. Again Eugenia exerted her eloquence, her tears. I heard her unmoved, and turning from them, "Now then, wretches, you can feel, now you know what it is to mourn as I have done; may the loss of your dearest hopes revenge my injuries."
I returned to my apartment exquisitely gratified. The following night I repeated my visit; there, on her bed of straw, lay the once captivating Eugenia, pale, dishevelled, her voice choked with sighs and tears, her late beautiful child consuming by a fever, and gasping for life, the Count stretched on the bare ground in silent agony, incapable of assisting those objects so dear to him! O, what a luxury of revenge!
When I drew near, before the mother could speak, the child extended its feeble hand, "Water, water, mamma!" Eugenia started, hastily reached to take the jug; her weak and tremulous hand, too eager to grasp the prize, dropped it between us! She shrieked, O misery! O, Baron! Water, for the love of Heaven some water!"
"You have had your allowance, you must suffer for your own heedlessness."
With an air of distraction she crawled to my feet: "If you wish that Heaven should pity you in your last moments, now, now show mercy to the wretch before you; save my child, procure me instant relief, see life quivering on its parched lips! Oh! God, for me it suffers! Baron, Baron, save the innocent!"
She sunk back on the damp ground; the Count groaned with anguish, and dashed his chains with rage. The child again feebly called for drink; she sprung up, "O, inhuman, merciless monster, worse than a savage beast! Thou wearest a human form, cannot our misery content thee? This agonizing sight!" She turned her eyes on the child, it was that moment seized with convulsions; its struggles, and the wild screams of the mother, made me shudder. I quickly hastened from the scene, which however gratifying to my wished-for vengeance, gave a temporary shock to my soul, that I was obliged to shake off by recalling to my memory the wrongs I had endured from a faithless, ungrateful woman.
That night and the following day I passed in steeling my heart against all supplications, and acquiring fortitude to bear the wild reproaches of a frantic mother, I doubted not but that the child was dead, and I anticipated the pleasure I should feel in seeing her wretchedness complete.
At the accustomed hour I entered the dungeon. The Count fixed his stern and haggard eye upon me with a look that penetrated me with horror: He spoke not a word. I advanced, and beheld Eugenia seated by her child, which lay, as I expected, dead. She spoke not, nor raised her head at my approach. "There is your allowance, (said I) and I will remove this object from your view." She seized the body, and turning up her face with a significance of woe inexpressible, a wildness in her eye, though sunk deep in her head by sorrow.
"Prepare the bed (said she) and I will follow; but my arms only shall convey my child, it sleeps sweetly now. Yes, yes, my love, your grand sire now relents; your birth-day shall be kept with splendour. Pray let us have a soft pillow, let us have music, the soft notes shall waft us to Heaven;—come, give me some food, I can eat now under this glorious canopy."—I saw her reason was disturbed, that grief had distracted her. She took the bread, and eat with eagerness; it was the day on which I gave them an allowance of wine; she drank it freely, talking wildly all the time, yet not with any violence.
My heart smote me, I went back to the Count: "Barbarian! (exclaimed he) now triumph, my child! the poor lost Eugenia!" His voice faltered, large drops fell upon his face. He dried them up, then looking steadily on me: "Whilst that dear unfortunate angel lives, I must exist; I receive this wretched sustenance for her sake; in its own good time Heaven will release us from thee, cruel, merciless wretch!"—But why should I repeat the ravings of a man in his situation? It is sufficient to say, that his insults, his impotent threats, roused me from that lethargy of soul, into which the incoherent language of Eugenia had plunged me, and turned my momentary remorse into fury: In the bitterness of passion I swore, that if Eugenia died, I would inflict unheard of tortures on him; and should he escape my power, then his mistress should feel the severest vengeance that I could devise. Worked up to madness by the agitations of my mind, I scarce remember what passed between us, nor did I ever pass a night so replete with horror as the succeeding one.
The following night I found Eugenia still the same, cheerful and melancholy by turns, but all recollection of her situation entirely lost. Sometimes she talked of her father, her child, her dear Count, as if all were present with her; then looking on me she would scream, and call for help, "a ruffian was going to murder her!" But, as during those paroxysms she walked swiftly backward and forward to the extent of her chain, I seized a moment, when her back was turned to drag the dead object of her sorrows from the dungeon to an outer hole, where I had left the corpse of Agnes. She soon missed her child, and uttered the most piercing cries, cries which froze me with terror, and which I saw no way to silence but by rough measures: I seized her by the arm, and drawing a dagger, which I always carried by my side:
"Woman! (I exclaimed, in a voice and with an action equally menacing) woman, cease these screams, be composed and silent, or this weapon shall be buried in your bosom." She shrunk and trembled; she, who had heretofore braved death, and defied my power, now shuddered with affright, and threw her eyes wildly round, as if imploring succour. Having succeeded in terrifying her, I placed her on the bench, again threatening her with death if she repeated her cries.—She sat still as death, her eyes fixed, her limbs trembling. I turned from her to quit the dungeon: "Stop, miscreant (said the Count) stay and end our miseries, give us the death you threaten, destroy both, and I will thank you!"
"Death! (I replied) No, that would rob me of my vengeance; you shall live to curse the hour you ever saw my wife; now revel in her company, now enjoy a teté à teté at my expense, and boast your triumph over Baron S———."
Without waiting a reply I left him. It is now eight years since this event took place. Eugenia continues in the same hopeless state, yet blessed in some degree that she is very seldom sensible of her miserable situation, except when I appear before her, she then utters the wildest lamentations; but on threatening her with a whip or stick she shrinks down and is silent. The Count evidently struggles to preserve his life for her sake, for hope I think must long since have forsaken him; he perseveres in a sullen silence, and my treatment of them has been uniformly the same. Time has not extinguished my hatred, nor glutted my vengeance; my death must forerun theirs; then, and not till then, will their sufferings end. How strong is the passion of love, but how much stronger the desire of Revenge!!
Memorandum,
"I have lost my boy in a consumption: I have, through the kindness of the farmer, procured an elderly man, whose poverty renders solitude preferable to want. I envy his happiness, for he has peace of mind!!"
A stranger, calling himself Ferdinand, has discovered this place; his society may be useful and comfortable.—No! he is a poor humane, pusillanimous wretch; he is fit for the world, he shall go.
The End of the Memoir.